Two decks can look identical on handover day. You find out which one you paid for the first time someone on your team tries to edit it. Here are five things inside a properly built PowerPoint or Google Slides file.
1. Master layouts: change the logo once, not forty times
Use Slide Master in PowerPoint, or the theme builder in Google Slides. Every slide inherits its layout (title, section divider, chart with headline), so a rebrand, a new logo or a font change happens in one place.
Built without it, every slide is a one-off your team has to fix by hand.
2. Theme colours: new charts come out on-brand by default
- Picked by eye: four slightly different “brand greens”, one per slide, because each was matched by eye. Every new chart defaults to the software’s blue.
- Set as a theme: one palette, defined once. Charts, shapes and text boxes your team adds later pick up the brand colours automatically.
This is the difference between a deck and a system. The first looks consistent on handover day. The second stays consistent after ten people have edited it.
3. Fonts that travel: it has to look the same on every laptop
On the designer’s machine, “Enterprise is now most of our revenue” sits perfectly in its custom font. On the investor’s laptop the font is missing, a fallback is substituted, and the headline overflows its box.
The fix is a font decision, not a design one. In Google Slides, use Google Fonts. In PowerPoint, either embed the fonts or choose ones every machine has. It is invisible when it is done right, and very visible in a meeting when it is not.
4. Live charts: update the number, not the picture
- Chart pasted as an image: Q4 closes higher than forecast, nobody can change the bar, so the old chart stays in the deck.
- Native, linked chart: edit the data and the chart redraws in brand colours. In Google Slides it can link straight to your Sheet.
Investor updates, board decks and sales decks change every quarter. A chart your team cannot edit is a chart that goes stale.
5. A real grid: why some slides feel “off” without anyone knowing why
Set guides and a column grid in the file. Every element lands on the same edges, slide after slide. When your team adds a slide later, it snaps into the same structure instead of drifting.
Test any deck in two minutes
Before you sign off on a designer’s file:
- Add a new slide. Does it offer your branded layouts?
- Insert a new chart. Does it come out in brand colours?
- Change one number in a chart. Does the chart update?
- Open it on a different computer. Do the fonts still look right?
Four yeses and your team can run the deck without you. Any no, and you will be paying someone to fix it before the next meeting. For more on building template systems, see How to Build a Master Template Your Team Will Actually Use.
Decks your team can actually keep using. DeckBolt builds investor, sales and executive presentations natively in PowerPoint or Google Slides, with layouts, theme colours and editable charts set up properly. 475+ projects for clients in 22 countries. Start a project.